With her first Orica-AIS training camp done and dusted, Tayler Wiles is now back home in Fairfax, California training for her first season with the Australian team since moving across from Velocio-SRAM alongside Loren Rowney. The 26-year-old started the 2015 season by winning a stage and overall at the Women's Tour of New Zealand in February and closed out the year with another stage and overall victory combo in winning the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l'Ardèche. She then helped her USA teammate Megan Guarnier claim bronze on home soil at the Richmond Worlds in September.
Of her three season with the Velocio-SRAM squad, 2015 was far and away the most successful for Wiles with wins also coming at the Energiewacht Tour and US Women's Pro Challenge, while a bronze medal in the national road race was another highlight. Wiles is looking improve upon those results in 2016 with the Olympics her primary objective, both the road race and time trial, and explained to Cyclingnews that she was looking for team that would support that ambition. Orica-AIS met that criteria.
"I think they are really great in terms of confidence in me as a rider and giving me the opportunity," Wiles said in a phone interview with Cyclingnews. "Next year being an Olympic year, it's really important that I have a team behind me and support that goal of being selected and they have been so great with that and all the girls too. It's a super supportive environment and everyone is rooting for each other. The confidence the riders and staff have is pretty incredible and I think that's going to help with my success a lot for sure."
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Wiles first met with the team and staff at its Italian base a few months back but it was during a week-long training camp in the Victorian Alps town of Bright last month that she was fully immersed with her new teammates and came away loving every minute of it.
"My teammate from the last three years, Loren Rowney, went over with me, which has been great as she’s been one of my teammates from the past couple of years and a really good friend so it's been nice to have her joining the team as well," she said. "The girls are just so easy to get on with and so much. I thought all the people in Australia were just the friendliest people."
During the camp Wiles got her "butt kicked" by her Australian teammates looking to peak early in the season for the national championships. The team was regularly joined by the sports directors Gene Bates and Marv Barrras on the training rides, a move that Wiles applauded, explaining "it's good to have your director see you on bike."
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